Hi everyone! Welcome to podcast #51! We’re excited to be back for another year and wish you all the best for 2014. Today we’re talking about online marketing predictions for 2014.

We’re also proud to announce that we have officially launched our VIP members lounge, giving members the latest on what’s working in online marketing. Members receive action steps each week to take that will help their websites to be a success. If you’re interested in taking a look, check out the Autopilot VIP Lounge here.

What did Andrew and Heather learn this week?

Andrew did a lot of learning over the holiday break. One of the things he learnt about was Google Tips. This site tells you how to use all the different Google products that are out there. It categorizes everything in a useful way so that it is easy for you to look through and learn new things.

Heather has been looking at the free eCommerce plugin Woocommerce. It now has an incredible library of over 200 extensions that allow you to do pretty much whatever you can fathom for your shopping cart. For example, you could add loyalty programs, affiliates or shipping tracking.

Online Marketing in 2014

Content

If anything, it will be even more important to have good content in 2014. It is the way to build relationships and demonstrate your expertise in your field. With so many people jumping on the wagon of providing content, it can be confusing for business owners to decide what they should be offering for free and what they should sell. The key is offering free content that helps solve a problem. Possibly not solving the whole problem but at least giving people a forward step so that they recognize your expertise. People want answers instantly these days so if you can provide them, you should do well.

Provide big-picture information free, then get into more detail with products you sell such as memberships.

Content on demand. This is an increasing trend: think Netflix or Amazon Prime where people can watch shows on demand. YouTube is also bringing in a paid subscription for certain channels.

Social Platforms

Two big themes we are noticing;

Paying to get your posts seen. Facebook announce before Christmas that if you have a page and want your posts seen, you will have to start paying. Can it continue? Well, the 15-23 age group is already leaving Facebook in droves so it could be a sign that others will follow suit.

All about access via apps rather than desktop.

The key thing is knowing where your target audience hangs out and how to use that platform to connect with them.

Mobile

Wearable technology is taking off. Think Google Glass as people want to be connected but have their hands free. Watches are also being developed. Tablets are still popular but there are more and more coming out so the iPad is not so dominant anymore.

There are more apps available that can allow you to make good videos or take high quality photos on your phone. Think apps like Picplaypost and Instaquote. There are plenty of opportunities for you as a business to create fresh content using these apps yourself rather than paying others to do it for you as in the past.

The Cloud

Cloud storage rather than saving on your own devices and needing a lot of memory is huge. This is allowing people to be more and more mobile and meaning devices do not need as much memory. There is an increasing number of lifestyle entrepreneurs who enjoy the ability to access their stuff from anywhere.

Whispersync is a good example – you could be reading a book on your Kindle app on your iPad then open your book at the same place you got up to on the Kindle app on your phone. All of our devices are starting to be able to be synced so you can easily switch between them.